


Dancing Lesson

by gritsinmisery



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-27
Updated: 2010-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gritsinmisery/pseuds/gritsinmisery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Koschei and Theta Sigma spent one long afternoon at the Academy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by **x_los**. For a pairing challenge at the LJ comm **best_enemies**.

Dancing Lesson

Once upon a time, in the system of Kasterborous, on the planet of Gallifrey, in the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, stood the Citadel of the Time Lords, its silver spires sparkling underneath a protective transparent dome in the red light of twin suns.  In a cluster of middling-high spires toward the edge of the dome was situated the Time Lord Academy.   That institution was where this planet’s ancient race sent its offspring to be housed and taught until they evolved from fast, loud, curious, adventurous creatures into the same stodgy beings as their antecedents.   At that point, they were loosed upon time and space. 

(Except of course it was well known that proper Time Lords never left the Citadel, much less the planet, nor did they care what went on in the rest of the universe unless it threatened them directly.)

The grounds between the middling-high spires of the Academy were filled with beautiful gardens, with paths both straight and winding, to accommodate those for whom the destination is important and those who place more emphasis on the journey itself.  One day, two gangly adolescent males were hurrying down one of the straight paths, students’ robes flapping about their legs as they went, one in front of the other.

 “Koschei, wait!  Where are we going?  Why are you in such a hurry?  Wait, I said!” the boy in the back called ahead.  
   
“Save your breath, Theta.  You’ll need it later.  You’ll see in a minute; now come on!” the one in front flung over his shoulder, never slowing his pace.

Reaching a building with a double spire, the leading boy waited for his friend to catch up, one hand on a door handle.  
   
 “This is the Fine Arts building, Koschei.  Why are we here?” the straggler puffed out as he came to a halt.  He’d been keeping up with the other since the far side of campus, where the Academy’s science facilities were located.  
   
Koschei pulled the door open.  “Oh, very good!  And Borusa says you don’t know your way between the dining hall and our living quarters.  I’ve always known the distracted bit was a sham.  We are here, Thete, because this is where we are going.”  Flinging the door open wide, he went through it, leaving his friend to catch the door or be hit by it.  Obviously used to such a practice, Theta Sigma caught the door without even looking at it and followed him into the building.

The same sort of disjointed conversation continued as Theta chased Koschei up a set of winding stairs, peppering him with questions for which Koschei steadfastly provided non-answers.  Finally, five flights up, Koschei pushed through a door out of the stairwell with Theta a few steps behind him.

“Kos-cheiiiii,” Theta drew the name out as he skidded to a stop on the hardwood floor and craned his neck to take in their surroundings, “this is a dance studio.”

“Precisely, Thete.  That is where one goes when one learns to dance.  And today, you shall.”  
   
Theta slowly turned on one foot, looking at the room.   The far wall was slightly bowed and consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows, letting in the late afternoon light from Kasterborous Major and Minor.  Both side walls were completely mirrored, casting reflections back and forth to infinity, with waist-high wooden hand-rails running their entire lengths.  The wall with the door held a sound system, and hooks and shelves for miscellaneous student paraphernalia.  The floors were the deep silver-gray of the wood from the forest that grew below the mountains, lighter next to the hand-rails and in an “X”-shaped path across the middle of the room because they had not been refinished since the start of term.

Koschei strode over to the sound system, popped in a chip, grabbed a remote, then shrugged out of his robe and hung it up, which left him wearing just thin white student-issue tunic and trousers.  “Robe off, Theta,” he demanded.  “You’ll have enough trouble with this without fighting that, too.”  He walked out to the middle of the room and turned, waiting.

“But Kosch, why?” Theta whined even as he obeyed.  “Why do I have to learn to dance?  I don’t need to.”

“Are you telling me no?”  Koschei’s tone was mild, but he raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms.

“I would never.” Theta hurried to hang up his robe, obviously worried by either the question or the body language that went with it.  Worried enough, in fact, that he missed the hook the first time and had to do a skidding turn from three steps away, when he heard his robe hit the floor, to go back and try again.  “But you always have a logical reason for the things you do, Koschei.  I’d just like to know it.”  He slid to a halt in front of his friend, his face almost puppy-dog eager to make up for whatever had caused Koschei’s anger.

“You’re the one with the infinitely-expandable interest in xeno-sociology.  So tell me – between mating rituals, socialization, and the arts – how many sentient species dance?”

Theta cocked his head to one side as if thinking, but the answer was easy and his reply immediate.  “Nearly all of them.”

“We’re getting off this rock the minute they let us near a TARDIS, yes?”

“Oh yeah.  The second, even.”

“So you’re on some other planet, and you want to blend in, or even be friendly.  You should know how to dance a little, right?  At least to music at two and three beats to the bar?”  Koschei gave off the air of a teacher who has just explained something easy to a rather slow pupil and is waiting for him to come around to an understanding.

Theta screwed up his face.  His friend was right, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.  “Okay, but – why now?  And why do you already know how to dance?”

“My family and their set – they have social dances as part of the process of working out marriage arrangements for their offspring.  So we get lessons before we’re ever sent to the Academy, continue them when we’re home on breaks, and once we get old enough, we attend the dances.  My mother indicated I’d have to start going next break, and I need to get in some practice.  So I’ll teach you.  Then you’ll know how to dance and I’ll be in good form when I have to drag some simpering female about a dance floor this summer.”

Theta stared at his friend in horror.  “Koschei!  You’re not… getting married, are you?”  
   
“Omega, no,” replied Koschei.  “Stay here, hand over some genetic material, and pretend I care about this petrified race?  Not for all the gadgets in Rassilon’s Tomb.  But how far do you think I’d get if I announced that fact?  Playing the game, Thete.  It’s all about playing the game until we get what we need to leave.”

Koschei pointed the remote at the sound system, and a waltz echoed off the hard surfaces of the surrounding wood and glass.  “Enough now.  Stand here behind me, and I’ll teach you your half.  It’ll be easier to lead you if you have some idea where you’re supposed to be going…  Right foot first; straight back on one, out and back with your left on two, bring your right foot to your left on three.  Then reverse it – left forward on one, right out and forward on two, left to close on three.  Now with me.”  
   
Theta tried to copy his friend’s movements, but bobbled it before he made it through the first set.

“Honestly Thete, you can do temporal dynamics in your head, but you can’t count to three?”  Koschei fussed.  “You don’t ever move the same foot twice.  I picked this one first just so you wouldn’t have to.  Watch: right, left, right.  Left, right, left.  And keep your head up, don’t stare at your feet.”

After a couple of sets, Koschei stepped away but motioned for Theta to continue on his own.  A couple more, and Theta said, “There, am I doing it now?  This feels like it’s working with the music.”

“Right.  If you can talk and keep it up, it’s time for the real thing.”  Koschei stepped in front of his friend, close enough that the other boy had to stop or step on him.  “Left hand on my shoulder; right hand in mine.”  He took Theta’s hands in his own and placed them where he wanted them, then put his free hand on Theta’s waist.  
   
“Koschei?  Isn’t this awfully, um… intimate for a public activity?”  Theta remembered what a fuss Professor Flavia put up last time she caught them hip-to-hip with their heads together in the lab, when they weren’t doing anything but quietly taking the piss at the Mathematics staff while they worked.   He worried his bottom lip between his teeth while he ran a long look down between their aligned bodies and back up to his friend’s face. 

Koschei was intimately aware of the sweep of his friend’s gaze, and knew exactly the situation which had caused him to voice that objection.  Although the two had been roommates since entering the Academy, they’d recently become lovers.  Like any new couple, they weren’t really careful about covering it up, and it was there for anyone to see: they stood too close, they touched too much, they watched each other too long.  Flavia had called them on it, embarrassing Theta terribly when he’d dropped a test tube at the bark of her voice.  Koschei just shrugged the whole thing off as something she should have been used to, teaching students their age for as long as she had.  After class he’d dragged Theta back to their room and done his best to give him something far more interesting to think about than spilled chemicals and prudish professors.

But now Koschei was on a mission, so he resisted the urge to take over working Theta's lip between his own teeth.  He knew Theta was more cooperative when things were explained to him in detail.  “The idea is to see if two people can move as one -- if they are physically compatible -- but in a public forum.  As such, and because it can be done with the participants an arms-length away from each other, the proximity is considered acceptable.  Now, the three points of contact – waist, shoulder, and hands – should tell you how far I want you to step each time, if you pay attention.  One-two-three, one-two-go.”

The light from the late afternoon suns cast four long, stumbling shadows across the gray floor.  It took less than three sets before Koschei dropped his hands and stopped.  “You’re not paying attention to the contact points, Thete!  You’re either stepping too far away and yanking me along, or treading right on my toes!”  He shook his head in disgust.  They usually had no problem working together; Theta easily followed his lead on any project.

“I think…” said Theta, ducking his head and looking up at his partner from under his eyebrows, “I think you’re too far away.  I keep wanting to pull us together.”

Koschei just sighed.  “You can’t dance any closer together in public, and certainly not with someone you just met.  But if it will help you get the feel of the steps, we can be closer for a little while, until you’re comfortable being led.”

“I’m certain that will help, Kosch,” Theta replied, his eyes shining with sincerity. 

Koschei, not fooled for a minute, resisted the urge to smirk.  He wrapped his arm around his partner’s back at the waist, clasped their hands, and pulled him close.  He looked slightly up into Theta’s face.  “I’m still leading, and you will still have to learn to waltz at a proper distance, y’know.”  
   
Theta wrapped his free arm around Koschei’s shoulder blade and laid the sides of their faces together.  “You always do, Koschei.  And I will.  Later.”  He stepped backward in time to the music as he felt his partner’s thigh start to move.  
   
Although Kasterborous Major and Minor both still hung low in the sky, there were only two shadows turning about on the floor and walls of the studio.  Neither dancer seemed to notice when the music finished.


End file.
